Fantasy GM Thread | Two Minutes to Midnight for Horvat?

[m9]

If it is easy to move money on players like a Horvat why are so many players like him still not moved? You can keep saying it shouldn't be a problem, but really how many teams are making trades at all right now not even money trades, just trades? Clearly there is bigger issues at play.

I am not saying it's easy to move Horvat, I am just saying there should be enough of a market out there given that his contract (with retention) isn't that big. This should be a much easier deal to accomplish than say Boeser, Garland, etc who have multiple years left and you don't want to retain.

Stop including stillman... it makes you look bad. I don't think you are, but it really does.

Very funny.

Bear is an NHL dman... full stop that is something like none of those guys were. That is a huge difference. Studnicka maybe could be close but even then look at what was paid vs those other trades. We traded high 2nds for most of those guys you listed.

Agreed that so far management hasn't spent high picks/prospects chasing these guys, which is good. These trades have been more comparable to the Etem/Larsen/Pouliot deals.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

Seravalli has an article that speculates what Eastern Conference teams will focus on at the trade deadline. Expects the Bruins and Capitals to be in on Horvat.

Caps please. Bruins have nothing of value.

 

[racerjoe]

I am not saying it's easy to move Horvat, I am just saying there should be enough of a market out there given that his contract (with retention) isn't that big. This should be a much easier deal to accomplish than say Boeser, Garland, etc who have multiple years left and you don't want to retain.



Very funny.



Agreed that so far management hasn't spent high picks/prospects chasing these guys, which is good. These trades have been more comparable to the Etem/Larsen/Pouliot deals.

I agree, so maybe it was the presentation of the OP?

 

[MS]

This is what I don't understand about Allvin's "building brick by brick" philosophy and the concept of moving Bo Horvat. They don't go hand in hand. You're absolutely not replacing the impact Bo has on this team easily, and this team even with Bo playing unreal, is a bottom 10 team. Moving Bo is going to blast a huge hole in the proverbial brick wall. If they don't re-sign him, I don't see how they effectively keep pushing this "brick by brick" narrative, you have to at least do a re-tool at that point.

It makes zero sense.

Once you sign Miller, you have to sign Horvat. It's just automatic.

To go all-in on signing a 29 y/o Miller and then go 'mehhhhh' about signing an impossible to replace high-leverage, high-producing 27 y/o C is just astonishingly backward. And it sets the team backward.

The team does probably take an immediate step back depending on a few other details, but you also can't sign Horvat to a contract that hurts your chance of signing Petey and also raises what he would ask for. There is a careful balance and I don't know if we will stick either landing.

The Myers/Boeser/Garland/Pearson contracts should be movable. You might get limited value and you might have to include a decent pick, but you have to be aggressive about moving those out. And if you do, there is room to sign all of the guys that actually move the needle.

To say, 'Well, we don't want to move a 2nd round pick to dump Myers so I guess we'll just deal this prime-age high-leverage C having a 50-goal season for a crappy futures package' is just ... insane. Batshit crazy. The logic is flawed beyond belief.

 

[Zippgunn]

Take picks. Picks are better currency to get what you need than forcing some age gap positional requirement.

The guys contenders want to move for rentals aren’t drastically changing the Canucks future imo.

Yeah maybe we could draft another Virtanen or Juolevi...

 

[racerjoe]

It makes zero sense.

Once you sign Miller, you have to sign Horvat. It's just automatic.

To go all-in on signing a 29 y/o Miller and then go 'mehhhhh' about signing an impossible to replace high-leverage, high-producing 27 y/o C is just astonishingly backward. And it sets the team backward.



The Myers/Boeser/Garland/Pearson contracts should be movable. You might get limited value and you might have to include a decent pick, but you have to be aggressive about moving those out. And if you do, there is room to sign all of the guys that actually move the needle.

To say, 'Well, we don't want to move a 2nd round pick to dump Myers so I guess we'll just deal this prime-age high-leverage C having a 50-goal season for a crappy futures package' is just ... insane. Batshit crazy. The logic is flawed beyond belief.

I am not talking about moving those guys, I assume they will be moved at some point. I am just talking about signing a player to what his worth is.

We have had part of this discussion before. I really wanted to sign Bo. Even last year when he struggled. Now I do think he is a high end 2nd line centre, and maybe a low end 1st line centre. Sure if you have to over pay a bit to keep him, but it seems to me clearly to keep him it will take a massive over payment. That I am not ok with. There has to be a point somewhere in the sand you draw of what is ok and what is not ok to sign him for. If the rumor mentioned in this thread is true do you sign him at 9+?

 

[credulous]

the canucks need to either commit to a capital-R rebuild or find some way to make it work with horvat and kuzmenko. i'm pessimistic that there's any path to clearing enough cap to matter but if you can somehow get to a cap sheet that looks more or less like:

pettersson
horvat
miller
mikheyev
kuzmenko
hughes
demko
assorted min cap filler and some big ticket dmen/centers

then you can probably be competitive for a few years. it's a huge lift to assume they can get out from pearson, oel, boeser and garland though

 

[LeftHandedDman]

The Canucks can't handle the tougher teams. The team is built all wrong.
I'd keep Petey, and be open to anyone else getting moved. And let's hope the hockey gods give us a break to draft Bedard.

 

[m9]

Studnicka is from the same Benning type.

Bear is absolutely not. He had been an NHL regular for multiple seasons, played a full season as a top-4 defender at 22 minutes/game, and basically walked straight into top-4 minutes here. Incredibly different sort of player. Same with Dermott who had extended periods as an effective NHL defender. The guys Benning was trading for were busting prospect who had never shown an ability to be effective in the NHL.

I think Stillman was a cap dump to even up part of the salary of that trade that the team was hoping could be useful defensive depth. I don't think he was 'targeted' as such.

All of the things you are saying about Bear you could say about say, Michael Del Zotto when he came here. Flashed early in their career, fell out of favour, bounced around a bit. Played higher up the lineup here at times than they should because the defense sucks. Sure, MDZ was a couple years older and was a UFA, but both guys in that 24-27 age range where they are what they are. None of this impresses me as an acquisition that cost a late pick and cap space.

There's nothing to suggest Stillman was a cap dump, but I agree he wasn't targeted either. Canucks had injuries on D and needed a body. They liked Stillman more than waiver-level guys and that's probably about it. I would put the acquisition cost at exactly zero.

It's been lost along the way, but my basic thought is just that you can find these kind of 3rd paring/4th line type guys all the time in the summer for free. Don't spend assets on them. That's it. You shouldn't have to trade for a Studnicka a few weeks into the season, just call up your own Studnicka and there will be almost no difference.

 

[Bob Cajun]

I'm still holding onto a faint shred of hope that there is a team out there that would trade for Miller. Like the Flyers. Management group that just doesn't seem to want to embrace the rebuild either. Take back JVR etc. I just don't see how that team can tear it down and rebuild

 

[Hodgy]

getting bouchard would be a coup but i don't think there's anyway it happens

I don't think Bouchard is as good as some here think. He has defensive issues.

It makes zero sense.

Once you sign Miller, you have to sign Horvat. It's just automatic.

To go all-in on signing a 29 y/o Miller and then go 'mehhhhh' about signing an impossible to replace high-leverage, high-producing 27 y/o C is just astonishingly backward. And it sets the team backward.

I've said this a bunch of times but I think its pretty clear what happened. Management was looking to grind Horvat on this contract and get the best deal possible. I assume that Horvat's camp was pointing to his strong goal scoring finish to the season and asking for more as a result. I think management wasn't willing to pay him more because it was a small sample size so opted to delay in hopes that his goal scoring would cool off and regress to the mean. From a rational or logical perspective, its hard to critique management on this as I don't think it was foreseeable that Horvat would continue on scoring at a 50 plus goal rate. But he has, and that has absolutely f***ed management's plan because now there is no way they are going to get Horvat at a reasonable rate. And frankly, there is no way that I would sign Horvat to a contract that in any way reflects him being a 50 plus goal scorer. I just don't think its sustainable.

With that said, if you think Horvat is going to have a Blake Wheeler like development curve as someone else pointed out then sure you can sign him to a longer term contract.

 

[Jay26]

One thing to remember here in terms of the direction with this team is it's not just about things like cap, contracts and all the nuts and bolts, or even how good or bad they are.

It's clear the team doesn't gel. The room, by all counts, is fragmented and most of us can just kind of see it on the ice. Even if you can make it work and sign Horvat and all that, are we really convinced that we can go forward with this group anyway? Granted, trading certain players might end up being the fix for the issue I mentioned if said players are the problem in the room. I'm absolutely not going to to name names, though, because none of us have a clue what the truth is.

I find one thing that almost never comes up in the discussion about Stanley Cup winning recipe is team chemistry. I believe it's a fundamental requirement on top of #1 D, #1 C, top 3 level draft talents, injury luck etc. If this team isn't gelling then honestly, what's the point? I'm not talking about tearing it all down just because the chemistry isn't perfect either. It's just that this team seems to be especially fragmented.

 

[Cogburn]

You are mixing a few concepts here. We didn't sell off to get Bear. Yes if we sell off I expect to get a Laff type guy back. Those are the two different concepts. I don't expect Bear to make us contenders, but I expect his added depth to help us.

You will get better by making these small bets that pay off.

The difference is we paid a 2nd for Pouliot, it was a terrible trade the moment it was made as he wasn't an NHL player.

We didn't sell off to get Bear, but we're using cap space from Dickinson, and paid a minor draft pick (which I don't mind the latter of, actually). That was a "now" move, which I don't hate at the time it was made, but he's a either a fill in for injuries (given the cost, at the timing) or he was genuinely meant to fix our D, which is way beyond the scope of what I could expect from Bear. Paying a second for Pouliot was a joke, I must have blocked out the cost thinking it was a third or a fourth.

Small bets paying off is so far not hitting with the rate we need to succeed, is my point. I listed off a condensed history of the Allvin and Rutherford in a previous post...and really Bear and Kuzmenko are really the two high points. Every other one I could think of range from "meh" to full blown wipeout.

If we sell off entirely, I fully expect better than Lafrieniere, by hook or by crook. Directly is not likely, but through a draft pick or as a random, lesser piece blossoming, or even combining assets in a later trade.

 

[TruGr1t]

They've painted themselves into a corner here.

The assets they are going to get from him at the deadline are low, and the cost it'll take to retian him is far too high. Letting this linger on this long is just par for the course from this franchise.

I have some forgiveness because there was no way that anyone could know Horvat was going to turn into a 40-50 goal scorer in his contract year. That's about it though, outside of that the situation was massively mismanaged and the Miller contract now looks borderline suicidal from an organizational perspective. The Boeser and Mikheyev deals, regardless of how you feel about the contracts, have not made the team better despite sapping cap space that could have been used in other areas (or to re-sign Horvat).

Per Drance and Dodd, the real poetic irony here is that Miller is a strong contributor 5-on-5 when he plays with Horvat.

Like I've said all along, the cardinal sin in this instance was not on a deal-by-deal basis (i.e. how you feel about the off-season player values signed etc.), it was a complete failure in terms of understanding the nuances of the roster, identifying areas of need, and taking a holistic view on the salary cap picture. This is perfectly illustrated in the Horvat/Miller situation, where they cut off their nose to spite their face.